


Undone

by xyai



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Anxiety, M/M, Post-Canon, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 21:02:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13132146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xyai/pseuds/xyai
Summary: Laurent's questions are legion; his curiosity, wild. He feels like a beast on the hunt, amidst a thicket of Akielon affairs. “I have been thinking,” Laurent says, “about your plans to abolish slavery.”Five weeks in Ios. Five weeks Laurent has, to sow the seeds of their shared kingdom.He begins with the slavery issue.





	Undone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [betweenthebliss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/betweenthebliss/gifts).



Laurent inhales the sea air; exhales. And again. Each breath measured. His patience has held for months. These final few minutes should not test him so.

Too far to listen, he watches instead. Damen is presently King Damianos of Akielos, standing tall at the edge of the waves, surrounded by seafarers and fishermen. Whether Damen’s speech aims to rally or not, the men—their faces grooved by salt and sun and toil—brim with enthusiasm, more like wide-eyed youths than aging fishers.

Forcing away his gaze, Laurent sees he is not the only one tempted by the King’s appearance. The spice vendor, the blacksmith, the wine merchant—agog, all of them, along with the rest of the market, burgeoning beneath the rose-gold of dawn. A painter would make fine work of the moment. As would a thief. Laurent suspects he himself could pluck half the jugs from the wine cart before the seller stirred from her reverie. Not that he would need to; just minutes past, she thrust upon him a morning cup, proclaiming him her day’s first visitor.

When Damen finally turns and meets his eye, Laurent brings the cup to his lips. He tries not to smile. He does not quite succeed.

Damen can hardly suppress his grin. He breaks away from the gathered men and moves toward Laurent, long strides resonant on the brine-soaked dock. The eyes of the marketplace follow.

“You cannot abandon your engagements every time I approach,” Laurent says. It is as though he has downed the full measure of his wine: he fills with gladness like a sustained high note, enough to shunt aside, for a moment, the urgent drumbeat that lives with him these days.

“I have done enough to restrain myself,” Damen says, “by not kissing you on the spot.”

Laurent takes it to mean that Damen did not anticipate his early arrival. After Lentos, it is a gratifying victory. “A degree more privacy, and I might be amenable,” he says, allowing Damen to take his hand. “I would oblige the market to avert its gaze, but this is not my kingdom to command.”

“Not yet,” Damen says, smiling. “Soon.”

Soon. Laurent has five weeks in Ios before the announcement of their union, before what is widely suspected—that Akielos and Vere will become as one—is made certain, a promise forged by the King. Five weeks in which to sow the seeds of their shared kingdom. To soothe animosities, strengthen alliances, ensure the approbation of a nation. Laurent’s feelings about it are irrelevant; the plan was made months ago, and he was the one who made them. He will not have their empire start on grounds muddied by hearsay.

“Yes,” Laurent says. “On one condition—keep all griva at far distance.”

Damen’s laugh breaks over the bellowing sea as they follow the light’s foray across the deck. Beyond, the sun tolls the bleached stones of the castle, which seems clasped in the hands of the sky.

 

* * * * *

 

Later, in the highest tower of the palace, Damen looks up, mouth hovering above Laurent’s navel. The sheet is askew at the foot of the bed. “You are distracted.”

Laurent shifts upward, putting a rueful hand on Damen’s back. It’s no use, with his mind in this state. The journey through the palace had been breathless, and long, those encounters hungry enough to give Laurent escape from himself. This slow, sweet unwinding leaves too much space for thought.

“Questions,” Laurent says, “about your last letter.” His questions are legion; his curiosity, wild—spanning harvest shortages, fractious states, and unbalanced accounts. He feels like a beast on the hunt, amidst a thicket of Akielon affairs.

Damen turns to kiss Laurent’s wrist, nose bumping his palm. “I should have led you straight to an assembly meeting, instead of holding you in my bedchambers.”

“No,” Laurent says, stroking the shell of Damen’s ear. He finds idle pleasure in this fragile part of Damen, that he alone may know. “I much prefer a private audience.” Damen looks so pleased at that, Laurent has to laugh. The burst of fondness is sudden, unfurling to his edges. Laurent twines fingers through the rough of Damen’s curls, then brings his hand down to rest at Damen’s shoulder. “You needn’t worry. I do find your company superior to that of the Kyroi.”

“If that is so,” Damen says, climbing forward and causing the mattress to dip, “whatever your questions, I will answer them in full.”

As Damen’s lips flit to his shoulder, Laurent shifts his gaze. Only the blue of the sky is visible through the open-air windows. He says nothing, his hand distracted along Damen’s skin. With ascension, the world is his to maneuver, but if he does not tame his impulses, every precious minute with Damen will become a matter of state. Peace holds its own terrors.

He elects to broach one subject, for now: what simmers louder than the rest.

“I have been thinking,” Laurent says, as Damen pulls up next to him, “about your plans to abolish slavery.”

“It’s no wonder you were not in the mood for—” Damen’s gesture encompasses them both— “this.” He pauses. “The decree will come at the end of this week.”

Laurent props himself on his elbow. “What is the opinion of the nobles? The commons?”

Damen looks surprised. “You and I both know what is right. It would take an age to convince them all of the same. Something like this is best suited for the King to decide.”

Laurent blinks. Damen’s forthright surety, invaluable on the battlefield, would not fare well in a matter as delicate as unlacing a slave culture. “Something like _this_ is too important to leave to chance.”

“You—” Disbelief furrows Damen’s brow. “You would have me wait. When abuses happen by the minute. Abuses we never hear of. When those enslaved have waited lifetimes, for a chance at some choice.”

Laurent pushes off his elbow and straightens to face Damen. His bare skin prickles. “A decree of this weight, hurled without warning? Should it falter at the outset, the court will never give up its ways.”

“The King does not bow to the whims of the court.” It is Damen who pronounces this; and it is Damianos, his presence like stampede thunder. “We lead, knowing the weight of trust behind us. We speak, knowing the might of our words.”

They are too far to hear the city wake. Only, a lengthened absence later, a seagull’s cry.

Then Damen speaks, quietly. “To have this shame, in the foundations of New Artes? I am not sure I can live with it.”

 _Foolish idealism_ , some part of Laurent thinks. The rest of him aches, to hear his private wants so stated.

In the end, the King’s word will be final. But words must travel, then turn to action, with the nobles playing translators. There is no point to abolition if the court does not support it.

Slowly, Laurent says, “A few weeks more. You have me here. Let me do what I can.”

Damen’s frown has shifted to faint bafflement. “You are already overseeing the announcement. And the court is eager to know you. There will be ceaseless demands of your presence.”

“I do have some experience fielding challenges on multiple fronts.”

The frown gentles. Damen reaches forward, covers Laurent’s hand with his. “Knowing your abilities, I expect by next week, you will have devised a way to bestow lordships on every slave in the nation.”

Laurent looks down, where their fingers are twined against white bedclothes. His unease comes like a tide, washing over the pleasures of the morning, even as Damen leans in to kiss him, to give him all that he would.

 

* * * * *

 

The welcoming banquets are grander than expected. Damen would not have requested it, knowing Laurent’s views on Veretian excess, but perhaps someone in the household has decided to cater to tastes Laurent does not have. It is as though a strain of reconciliation makes the gold glint brighter, the honey glisten stickily. His Uncle notwithstanding, Laurent is the first Veretian dignitary to be received so in ninety years. A fact to marvel at, and one that dwindles his appetite.

But the food is not the point. Each moment is a chance—to impress, to learn, to charm. Sent weeks ago, his instructions have been met: the receptions are organized in the Akielon way, without the limitations of a banquet table.

“Come,” Damen says, standing from the makeshift throne, wrought in iron and gold. “Let me introduce you.”

Laurent rises. “No.” He sees himself as the milling nobles might: his enemy coloring, his slash of a stance and his slash of a mouth. “In their King’s presence, even the contentious would feign acceptance. I’d rather not have your introduction, and see what comes forth.”

“You have a plan.”

“Of course.”

Damen smiles. “Of course.”

Laurent watches Damen stride across the courtyard and, without effort, garner lords and ladies, who cling to his side like silk-shrouded burrs. The moment strikes Laurent with strange wonderment. He determines it the glow of outward pride, muted since Marlas. But he is no longer a boy resigned to scholarly reticence; this game can be won, and he chooses to play.

Of each hall, each courtyard, each wind-stirred garden, he makes swift work. They will never listen if they do not trust.

For ready allies, he need only air his wit or brandish his learning, before gaining wisdom in return. From these allies come new acquaintances; with them, he effects grander persuasions. He advises nobles on commerce with Vere, speaks of inventions from his homeland. Ladies Euphiredes and Pelagia, he convinces to adopt Lysian farming techniques; another five lords of Sicyon, he convinces to draw armory metal from Mellosian mines. In turn, they offer him glimpses of their regions’ ailments, upset caused by Theomedes’ conquests. Not all of it pertains now, but eventually, this is information Laurent will use. He has always enjoyed the trade of knowledge.

“You haven’t met Makarios yet, have you?” Damen asks, some days into Laurent’s visit. “He’s stubborn as a bull.”

Laurent has not. There are still the Western lords who disdain him, who hail from the old regime and regard reconciliation as weakness. Laurent is cordial, but he knows better than to ingratiate. In the milieu of each reception, they gather like crows, weary ranks unbroken. He has not seen reason to struggle while there are easier alliances to form.

“He is gone on campaign for another two weeks,” Nikandros says, wine jug in hand. The summer days arch long, and even with the late hour, light glints off the enamel dishware, streaks the ends of the dining chamber. “I do not expect he will like you.”

Laurent levels him with a look. “You did not think you would like me. And yet here you are, pouring me your region’s finest wines.”

“This is no expression of fraternity,” Nikandros says, sliding over two cups, one full, one halved. Damen snorts—Laurent would not have joined their conference, after all, without Nikandros’ request. “I pour in acknowledgment of Delpha’s stability.”

Damen sets down his cup. “I wish we could do the same for the Eastern regions. I may have to visit them myself.” His eyes skip to Laurent. “Unless—” his fingers land on Laurent’s wrist. The gesture is premature, one of redress— “your plans require my presence?”

Even if they did, Laurent would not raise protest. “They do not.” He takes a swallow of the earth-dark wine. Its spices cling to his throat.

Nikandros raises his cup to Damen. “Fortune upon you. I’ve never liked visiting the coastal settlements. All that ceaseless ceremony.”

As Laurent sips and listens, he considers his own aversions. He has let them affect his strategy. Of the countless solicitations for his attention—invitations to go riding, watch theatre, turn a bout in the ring—all are from nobles whose favor he had anticipated, not a single of them hard-won.

The matter will be rectified. Not today, nor tomorrow, but soon—for he has less time for diplomacy than he would like. The preparations for their announcement and the festival preceding it are a vexing strain on his days.

“If the procession occurs at sunset, light will come from the west,” Laurent tells Hesperos, the Master of Ceremonies. “A row of squinting nobles will not make for a formidable sight.” Already Laurent has capitulated on the garments he will wear, the rituals he will undergo, the relics he will bear. These are not new to him, but what Laurent has learned about Akielos through reading, Hesperos has gleaned from a lifetime thrice the span of his.

It does not mean the man knows everything, or very much at all.

“We have always walked from east to west,” Hesperos insists. “It is tradition.”

It is tradition that has lasted for three years only, as long as the White Bridge has existed. Laurent is careful not to lift his brow—it would hardly be worth it, with the sculptor eyeing him so closely across the room. He would rather not live preserved in the public square, perpetual exasperation on his countenance.

He would rather not be cast in marble at all. The last of his obscurity peeled away. Revered before he has done anything to deserve it.

But kingship is a costly charade, and his life is no longer his own. And the casting of royalty in marble, he knows, is an Akielon tradition far older than three years. He has not forgotten the Kingsmeet.

 

* * * * *

 

While charming the Akielons, he does not bring up slavery. This early, it would be like air meeting stone. This is not Vere, where the topic would stud every conversation, courtiers making gaudy pronouncements about last night’s ministrations. Here, references coil up, unbidden and unnoticed. Open confession of the keeping of slaves, though never of their services rendered.

It is a fact of court life. It rankles each time, and each time, Laurent keeps his expression politely dispassionate, and tabulates his progress.

The nobles will not take kindly to giving up their slaves. That much is certain. And so, he remains reticent on the issue. What rumors there are, stay rumors, and the nobles who chortle at his remarks and praise him for his ideas do not suspect how urgent on his mind it is, to wrest away what they hold dear.

 

* * * * *

 

He steps sideways, light in the ring—sees the coming lunge and skirts it, causing Lord Kolythus to grunt, then whirl. Laurent’s senses are raw to the world. His sandaled feet fling up dust, and sweat leaves his skin. He hears animal sounds only, and soughing wind. No words to be shaped, not while steel is at play.

Several minutes in—his sword to Kolythus’ throat.

Lady Olaria approaches from the sidelines, clapping loudly. “An honor to be beaten by the King of Vere, eh, Kofa?” Kolythus is breathing too hard to answer. He makes a gesture in Olaria’s direction—unfamiliar to Laurent, but its sentiment is obvious. “Did you know, Your Majesty, such shock overcame Lord Kolythus when your spear found its target, he nearly toppled off his seat.”

Laurent has chosen to begin here, with Kolythus and Olaria: heirs of influential Western families, and close to him in years. So readily did they accept his invitation, he suspected a larger plot.

An hour in, they have not stopped talking about the okton. Laurent, doubts largely dismissed, likes them in spite of it.

“You’d had too much to drink and seized my arm,” Kolythus pants, hands braced on his thighs. “Of course I tipped, with your weight dragging me forward. Still, Your Majesty—your performance was most impressive. Is riding of particular emphasis at your court?”

Laurent has as little remaining breath as Kolythus, but while air returns, he stands straight and cocks his head, as if in thought. Eventually, he says evenly, “What have you heard of Vere’s court?”

Olaria says, “Do you prefer truth?”

Laurent motions with his fingers.

“Seething with perversities,” says Olaria, with a touch of drama. “And full of deceit.”

Laurent’s mouth quirks. The real truth, then. When a courtier of his Uncle’s court begged permission to truth-tell, it only ever led to greater dissembling.

He should not be surprised, with the knowledge he has gained this last hour, tossed with abandon like cherry pits—news of squabbles over forest land, taxed river routes, bridge tolls. His instinct plucks at each fact they reveal: _a weakness to remember_.

He makes a gambit—a bid at knowledge repaid, at his own truths confided. “One did not reveal one’s mind. The days were long with suppression.” Laurent muses at the way they lean forward. He ignores the urge to turn away. “When I found myself tempted, I went riding. Of all the courtiers in Arles, none had a head more full of scandals than my horse.”

At night, he is helpless to his past, which still gulfs his dreams; in daylight, he can fashion it like wit.

As Olaria chortles, Kolythus nods. “Lord Makarios always says—one misplaced word in Vere, and your throat runs with blood.”

“The way Kofa’s throat would have run, minutes before,” Olaria says, grinning. “If, Your Majesty, our nations were still enemies. As most of our elders believe.”

 

* * * * *

 

In fluent writhes, the actors depict a tale of betrayal and redemption. The midday sun rains down on their slinking bodies.

Shielded by silks drawn overhead, surrounded by riotous courtiers, Laurent applauds politely. Damen rises to clap at a valorous turn in the tale. For a beat, Laurent considers following suit, should it be impolitic not to. He stays seated.

“Did you enjoy yourself?” says Damen when the play ends. The audience begins drifting to formations conducive to talk.  

“I found it instructive.” Five separate nobles had informed Laurent that Sofronia, her stylings unabashed, is presently Akielos’ foremost playwright. He has pondered for the duration of the play, his mind welting ideas from surrounding clamor like a whip.

“Exalted.” A Lady in green silks has approached. “I bring tidings concerning the East.”

Damen thus engaged, Laurent looks down toward the stage. Two actors see him and bow, then glide off like sails across a stony sea. Laurent begins a count in his head: three tolls before he wades into the crowd, Laurent the King of Vere.

On second count, he sees crossing his periphery a man of sturdy build and equal height. The heat has touched him, leaving beads on his temple below peppered curling hair. But he comes easily through the dozens in his way, as if slicing with a knife.

The man bows. Laurent says, “You are a day early to our meeting, Lord Tyros.”

“Your Majesty,” says Lord Tyros, straightening. “We may leave business for tomorrow. My interest here is sheer indulgence.”

 _Indulgence_ seems unlikely for a famed former commander—as unlikely as this ready deference from a Western lord. It was Olaria who induced the coming meeting, with her mention of Tyros’ long association with Makarios.

Laurent says, “Perhaps you wished to discuss the play.” Lord Tyros smiles, very slight. In a sudden gust, the silk coverings beat like wings. Laurent holds himself taut on instinct alone, and continues, “My opinion is favorable. It appears to have met its aims.”

“Indeed. Especially if it aimed to make the audience leap like oil on hot iron. Did you find it sufficiently provocative?”

Tyros will have observed him for some minutes before approach, to know he was not engaged. Perhaps longer, to allude to his dispassion. Laurent says, “There are those for whom any amount of provocation is too much.”

“And others who know it is vital to progress. Often, the subjects you speak of fare poorly under new rule.”

It could be reference to Makarios, or a claim without further consequence. Laurent would be remiss to not think the former. “We stray toward business,” Laurent says. “Has tomorrow arrived so soon?”

“Your Majesty. I did not mean to cross your scruples.” His liquid way of speech, each line profuse with interpretation, is a reminder of home, uncanny in these parts. Tyros gives obeisance and makes to depart. “When we meet again, I hope our conversation presents all manner of provocation.”

Laurent watches him go. He will have to make inquiries. But the meeting cannot delay.

 

* * * * *

 

The meeting proceeds, and within the day, the High Secretary delivers a fresh spate of invitations.

Laurent’s hours fill with gatherings of the Western lords, who wear their thoughts like crowns. Former warriors, they ask after his fighting prowess, pronounce him solemn, reserved, and serious.

He feels himself to be a curiosity, neither beloved nor disliked. It is not antipathy, and that should count as victory. But after one week alone, their regard is like soft flesh. Enter a blade, and it is ripe to split apart.

 

* * * * *

 

There are still slaves that walk the palace, though Damen no longer takes them to bed. Nor does he allow them to serve him. Laurent has seen them perform duties for other courtiers, but he does not ask Damen what it is they do now. Instead, he goes to see for himself.

“Were you aware,” Laurent tells Damen later, “that palace slaves continue to be trained?”

“Is there harm in that?” Damen pauses, fork halfway to his lips. He looks faintly alarmed. “We offer them coin, now, and give them freedom to roam.”

Laurent knows. He thinks about smooth-faced Pheraclos, the new Keeper of Slaves, telling him earlier that afternoon that the slaves all wished to stay. He thinks about these slaves, invited before him, all of them prostrating. Even pitched kindly, his invitation to speak had met with meager reception. A few who dared, averred in soft voices that they’d been given choice to leave, but preferred the cloistered palace walls to a harsh life on their own.

Laurent is not naive. He knows there will be slaves who do not wish to leave their masters, slaves halfway through their training who are terrified not to finish. They have never known otherwise. He sets his own fork down, silver on ceramic. Around the meat pools the liquid of beets, its colors vicious.

“You will not refer to them as slaves,” Laurent had told Pheraclos. “The word implies an absence of will, and they have now chosen this life.” _To what extent_ , he had thought, _that they can_.

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Pheraclos had spread his hands. “Have you a preference—”

“Artisans. Courtesans, if you must.” A pause. “ _Vocāre_.” An Artesian word for _voice_.

“For the time being, there is not harm,” Laurent says to Damen—already making to depart, for a meeting with ambassadors. Laurent tips his face up as Damen leans down to kiss him. “It is a waste nonetheless.”

The next day, he seeks out Sofronia; she agrees to his proposal. He speaks to Hesperos, and after allaying the man’s anxious demurring, Hesperos, too, agrees. He speaks to Pheraclos, who upon further examination is not incompetent, and will do in carrying out his directions. If there were ambassadors to Vere, Laurent would speak to them too, but at the moment, he is the closest thing they have.

His days are rife enough, without the impending threat of famed Makarios.

“True, his influence is vast, but you will earn his favor once you meet,” says Olaria gaily, tugging at her reins. The woods are a respite from marble and sun. “He will see you as we do.”

 _And what_ , Laurent wants to ask, _do you see?_

“If he has little affection for Vere,” Kolythus adds, “it is no wonder—for what Akielon commander would?”

Only Lord Tyros. Unusual Lord Tyros, of sterling reputation. Or so return Laurent’s inquiries on the sly, though his instincts say otherwise. Still, the man has proven of considerable value, and Laurent has found no reason to doubt his acuity. Tyros’ every insight on the fellow nobility has borne out, widening Laurent’s prospects.

His influence collects like rainwater, as does his knowledge. But neither of these is trust, and will therefore not suffice.

 

* * * * *

 

“But—given the choice, you would go without? I cannot imagine such a life.”

Laurent masks his distaste with years of practice Lord Pelagia never had. He’d supposed enough time had passed to begin his foray into the topic of abolition. Evidently not. Elbow propped on the arm of his chaise, Laurent lifts an airy hand. “One does not enter a man into a contract who cannot read, and suppose the contract fair because he does not fight to leave it.”

Their eyebrows rise—in surprise, or comprehension, or perhaps some recognition of the truth. “Your Highness,” Lady Escalus says, “I did not realize you were an idealist.”

“I possess ideals,” Laurent says flatly. It would be indelicate to continue pressing the issue with nobles who hold so firm, their approval still fragile with infancy. “I find them useful. It is a fool who falls prey to blind optimism.”

 

* * * * *

 

Despite the piling work, preparation for the announcement does not cease. Neither do Hesperos’ complaints about Pheraclos and his flouting of the old ways. But Laurent has witnessed their progress with the _Vocāre_ ,and he has deemed it passable.

At the far end of the Great Hall, Laurent hears Hesperos tell Damen, “You must come see the display the palace courtesans are practicing, Exalted.”

“Display?”

There are advantages to working alongside others, but discretion is not one of them. Laurent does not turn around. He is examining the dais steps, from which he and Damen will descend following the ritual pronouncement. The timing, and position, and pace of the descent will be vital—as will every other detail. Laurent hears Damen dismiss Hesperos.

A minute later, Damen wanders over. “You did not tell me you had such grand plans."

Laurent cocks his head. The throne on the dais is a stark construction of gold and marble. Majestic to behold but, as Damen has shared privately, an affront to one’s backside. “I have not been in Akielos long enough to carelessly spout every secret inside my head.” Nor would he burden Damen with problems that are not his to solve.

“What about carefully, in answer to my asking?”

Laurent pauses. He cannot tell Damen everything, but he can tell him something. After all, his more public designs are meant to be spread, and Damen will soon learn of them anyway.

He speaks of his vision for the _Vocāre_ , and perhaps other freed slaves besides. Intentions to make use of their skills—in oration, song, history, theatre. Of their abilities to enthrall and recede, to enchant and assuage. The _Vocāre_ will spread word of New Artes. He will have them tell truth, and in so doing, they will foster change across the borders, persuade two nations of their united purpose.

It is still an unfamiliar feeling, voicing ideas not shaped to perfection. Laurent would not consider it with anyone else. But Damen alone, he trusts not to think differently of him, should he overlook a small element.

Damen is ablaze, as if receiving word of certain victory. “Our kingdom does not know its luck, to have you at its head.” His expression turns thoughtful. “Training grounds already exist in every city, dispersed and funded by taxes. They are like military compounds. Or trade guilds! Might they become centers of learning, gathering?”

The idea is sound, putting form to thoughts yet unruly. Laurent had forgotten this discovery, that none other than working, fighting, planning alongside Damen exceeds the absolute harmony of operating alone. “The power will not tip to them unless they establish public lives.”

Damen shakes his head, laughing a little. “At gatherings, you float between noble families from every region, as if you were born to this court. You must have dozens already enlisted to your plans.”

Laurent fights a sensation like water rising past his throat.

Perhaps his plans will work, perhaps they will not. History suggests they will. But sometimes, he wonders, when his fortune will bleed dry.

 

* * * * *

 

“No aqueducts at all?” The astonishment carries, even against the wind. “And yet we are the barbarians.”

“Some Veretians mistake simplicity for a want of sophistication,” comes Damen’s voice, warm but firm. “They are inclined to think ill of us. As we are of them.”

The sky is a blue struck clean by yesterday’s rain. A silk awning shades the party, five or six, from the morning sun. Laurent approaches, and one of them—Lord Theros, newly arrived from Mellos—nearly upends the platter of olives in his haste to bow. “Your Majesty! I—”

“You did not realize how little Akielon ingenuity had traveled,” Laurent says, lowering himself onto an unoccupied lounge, cup held delicately.

“My own ignorance entirely, Your Majesty."

Lady Escalus tucks an errant curl behind her ear. “His Majesty seeks to correct for this oversight. He speaks thrillingly on Veretian inventions, and listens attentively on Akielon ones.”

“Indeed!” Theros smooths his chiton. “Well, Lady Escalus and I were discussing just yesterday: can you imagine, the very first slave training grounds, built in Arles?”

As Laurent wrenches his gathering ire, Damen says shortly, “That will not happen.”

“Of course—Exalted—yes.” Theros’ hands are aflutter. “You are right. In this art, Akielos is unmatched. To train them natively is tradition, and best.”

“After all,” says Lord Pelagia, ever the wit, “where the slaves go afterward is ours to decide.”

The group titters at the truth of it. Damen is frowning, leaning forward. Preparing, Laurent realizes, for confrontation. Laurent does not move. Laurent thinks, _I should have said more._

“No,” Damen says. Even seated, he has the bearing of a warrior, battlefield-ready. “There will be no more of it. Any of it.”

The murmuring agreement cuts short. Laurent is aware, distantly, of noise in the background: the plink of glass, a peal of laughter. The field in his periphery is flush with green, its visible scraps painfully bright.

“You don’t mean—”

Damen looks at Laurent, too late. A dozen retorts scurry through Laurent’s mind. He halts them all. They would only inflame.

Lord Pelagia smiles, as though it is all a ploy. “You mean to end slavery?”

Damen does not return his smile. “We do.” The group is silent with shock. “Akielos is a proud and ancient culture. But we have only become so by changing course when necessary.”

“Never at such cost to tradition.” Lady Escalus’ tone is tight. “Exalted.”

“Traditions, too, can change.”

“Of course,” she says. Her eyes alight on the gold around Damen’s, then Laurent’s, wrists—exposed by the season’s scant cloths. “I only hope to ensure our culture’s survival.”

“And we will.” Damen’s voice holds steady. “But when a sculptor restores a statue to glory, does she not remove the rot?”

“She preserves all that is integral to the statue, Exalted.” Her attempted smile is all pursed lips. “Slavery is a foundation of our ways. Our slaves are nothing like those of other nations. They are not mistreated; they are lavished upon, adored. Such is the contract between master and slave.”

“And yet,” Damen says, “just last year, a dozen of our finest were shipped off with no warning to Arles, where I can assure you, they were neither lavished upon nor adored.”

The air hardens like steel. The other courtiers will be reacting. Laurent ought to observe them. He keeps his eyes on Damen instead, his presence incontestable.

Laurent cannot imagine ruling with anyone else.

Lord Pelagia coughs. “Yes. An unfortunate incident.”

 _Unfortunate incident._ He says it with the curling tone of a lord who has spotted mud on his cape.

“We are not, I hope, a nation that considers abuse and rape mere incidents of misfortune.” Damen’s jaw is tight. “We will not discuss this here. Leave us.”

The party stands hurriedly and bows, scattering like a litter of cats. Laurent watches Damen unclench his fists. They are both of them cast in shadow, masked in the cool of the canopy.

“I have ruined your efforts,” Damen says roughly.

As if Laurent had efforts worth ruining. Two weeks, and they were never more than seeds. He digs his nail into his palm, where he imagines it leaving a crescent imprint. “Now we know how they think.”

Laurent does not doubt they will talk. At the council meeting tomorrow, the subject will arise, whether Damen broaches it or not.

 

* * * * *

 

Laurent finds grim satisfaction in being correct.

“It was you, wasn’t it, who brought your Veretian fancies to our country.” Like the smashing blow at the end of a threat, Makarios is arrived at last, a day before his due. “You, so recently our enemy, who will cause the death of a great and ancient culture.”

Laurent knows his ilk. Men of war—endlessly shouting, careless of their defiance—endlessly agitating, careless of their hindrance. For two weeks, and for a lifetime, he has prepared for this scar-faced boulder of a man.

Given more time, Laurent would have favored diplomacy. But there will never be enough time for all the problems he must solve. Makarios must form his own trap, and Laurent will happily pave the way.

Damen opens his mouth to quiet Makarios. Laurent lifts a hand to stop him, leaning back in his seat, arms loosely propped. He brings his gaze toward Makarios at a languorous pace. “Do you imply that King Damianos does not have a will of his own, or that it is simply outmatched by mine?”

Lord Makarios goes scarlet and grips the table edges even harder. The council table, at least, is marble. _A wooden table_ , Laurent thinks dryly, _might have snapped by now_.

“Our nation will suffer,” Makarios growls. “We will lose everything.”

The other nobles shift uneasily. It is a topic none of them wants to touch.

“It is the enslavement of innocents that your King is deliberating. The chance to have one’s cock sucked will remain.” Laurent flicks a glance over Makarios. “For most.”

There are huffs of breath around the table. Someone strains an indelicate cough.

Makarios inhales deeply, red from ire. “You are very confident, Your Highness. And certainly known for your brilliance.” His eyes go to Laurent’s hair. “You must have considered how our people will suffer.”

Weighing the merits and risks of various plans will be crucial—in due time. “Of course. Though my conception of the term may run broader than yours.”

“But you have considered it.” Having seized control of himself, Makarios is far more dangerous. Laurent watches him. “Then I expect you will convince the court of your views before your visit concludes.”

An obvious trap. Laurent can see the change this causes in the room, the anticipation that precedes bloodsport. He chooses his words carefully. “The court will believe what it does.”

“The wider assembly gathers on the eve of the festival. Do we have your estimable learnings to look forward to?”

A chamberful of hungry gazes converges on him, and in a rush, Laurent sees his errors. They are insistent as glass shards underfoot. It is his fault, this miscalculation. He did not account for the Akielon boldness. His Uncle is dead, and still the despicable wisdom of his court clings to Laurent like smoke.

Laurent refuses to react. Carelessly, he says, “Learnings? Easy enough to procure.” In the corner of his eye, Lord Tyros’ fingers tap the marble-top, inaudible.

“How grateful we are, Your Majesty,” says Makarios. “I look forward to being convinced.”

The audience leans back, satisfied with its fill. The discussion turns to wheat shortages and autumn reinforcements, matters more immediate.

That evening, in the pressed heat of the baths, Damen says, “Allow me to help. I can speak in your favor. Or, better yet, have him stand down.”

Laurent watches the upset of the water, its endless disturbance. Many of the nobles respect him enough. But their appetite at seeing Makarios’ challenge attempted will not die easily. “No. It would seem like weakness.”

Should he flounder, his authority at court will collapse to silt. He will manage the task. An inclination for research, a facility for talk—he has never lacked for these abilities. If he has promised too much, so be it. He has always had a way of turning _too much_ into an advantage.

Alone with Laurent, Damen shakes his head at the nobles’ resistance, disappointed by their self-seeking ways. Laurent does not disagree, but neither is he surprised.

He pleats his daylight hours with appointments, each nipping at the last. His staunchest supporters, to start. From most of these talks, he retires with his ears full of protest. _Their nature is to serve, if not by birth, then by delicate breeding_. Or else, _What transpires between us is tenderness, and care, and does not concern the province_.

A few nobles slip him questions neither unfair nor new: who will pay the freed slaves, house them, show them new purpose. They comprise the growing mound of issues Laurent must answer within the month, if he has any hope of turning the court.

From morning to night, Laurent talks. Evenings, he reserves for work. He spends his nights sifting through palace records, curled parchments lit by lamplight. With enough research, he is certain he can supply answers on questions of economy. Figures and sums—for all their fastidiousness, they are easy to wield. It is issues of belief that concern him. He can, and will, bring the nobility all the numbers they could want, but perhaps even Damen cannot shift his nation’s ways.

 

* * * * *

 

Laurent leans forward in his chair, forehead braced against a hand. His movements feel unnatural in the unstirring silence, the elusive sliver between night and dawn.

He is nearly certain of his response to Sofronia’s message, his requests for the Keeper of Coin. He has turned in his head, around and around, a yolk of a plan for the nobles’ slaves, and though it is distasteful, he is almost sure it is best. But he did not arrive here trusting in near-certainty. He did not arrive here trusting in anyone but himself, and even that has been unreliable as of late.

It is not quite true. He could not have survived without Damen. He still forgets, sometimes. That his kingdom is reclaimed and stable. That his life is not a thread about to snap. That his Uncle is dead, and Damen is here. It was so long without him—

—a clatter from outside—and Laurent feels his hand jerk, spilling ink across his work. A curse springs to mind, but he is as unlikely to voice it as he is any other thought.

Damen is asleep, snoring softly, by the time Laurent returns. A breeze stirs the silk at the windows, revealing the stars, and Laurent pads forward. The vista is immense, silver slanting over a spread of shapes. A few dots of gold light the distance. Laurent rests his head against stone, hair ruffled by the night air.

Laurent climbs into bed. Feeling foolish, he reaches out and lays gentle fingers on Damen’s shoulder. Damen’s skin is warm. It always is. Laurent moves his hand away before he can fall asleep like that, but sleep does not reach him for an age. He spends it looking at the pale of his own hand against the pool of the sheets, waiting for the dark to quiet his thoughts.

 

* * * * *

 

Here on the balcony, the glare of the sun is just strong enough to prickle. “It may be necessary to let some slaves stay with their households,” Laurent says, closing his eyes. “For the time being.” It is no small point, but after days of meetings, he has seen they may need to concede it, should they not want revolt.

He thinks he hears the shift of cloth as Damen turns. It may be the gusts, wild this high up.

“Our aim is to free them.” There is no mistaking Damen’s indignation. “What you propose is hardly different.”

“They will have more freedom than they do now.”

“How free can they be, living with their masters?”

“Freedom always exists in degrees,” Laurent says sharply. He thinks of figures he has passed in alleys, scraping up a living; of farmers whose lands have burned to ash. He thinks of Nicaise. He thinks of himself, not so long ago.

He thinks of Damen, in chains at his feet, face taut with fury.

“Laurent,” Damen says.

Laurent opens his eyes.

Concern softens Damen’s face, now. “What is wrong?”

Laurent looks down. His hands are trembling, pale where they clutch the balustrade. He faces Damen, forcing his hands to his side.

“We will afford them the choice, meager though it is. If we do not squander the power we have fought for, their choices will eventually widen.”

“It is my fault. I should have shown more care,” Damen says bitterly. It can only be kindness, this absurd claim of guilt. Perhaps Damen means it as a parting gift. “And now it befalls you, to soothe their discontent.”

How simple it would be, to step forward, surrender. To live in the illusory safety of Damen’s embrace, if only for a moment. “I am no helpless bystander,” Laurent says. The thought will have to be enough. His part is to allay Damen’s strain, not contribute to it. “I play my part, just as you will play yours by riding east.”

Damen runs a distracted hand through his hair. “This is such poor time to leave court.”

Laurent will not be able to leash the nobles on the rope of Damen’s authority. But he denied the offer once already, having always planned to avoid such a graceless route. “In Kesus, you may berate the warlords for refusing to postpone their revolt.”

After some seconds of silence, Damen’s mouth lifts, perfunctory. "Should I do it on your behalf?"

That evening, as Laurent attempts to make sense of a moldering stack of records, Damen comes up behind him, his hand a sweet pressure on Laurent’s shoulder. “If you do not rest, you will collapse with exhaustion.”

“When the work is done,” Laurent says. Sweetness will have to wait. Damen has seen him surrender to anger; has seen him chained and on the brink of death. But Damen has not seen him make a plan, and have it slowly fail. When Damen returns from Kesus, Laurent intends to have resolved the rest of it—the courtiers’ anxieties alleviated, their questions answered, their confidence in the coming reign restored.

It takes hardly a brush of Laurent’s fingers for Damen to lift his hand. Laurent turns back to his parchments. But with Damen so near, his defenses are fragile. He departs for a lower palace study.

There, he is aware of his own anticipation. Damen does not find him. It is possible he does not try.

 

* * * * *

 

Damen has gone, and with him, the quelling might of his presence. In the wake of his departure, the Western contingent springs free, thwarting Laurent’s every will. Laurent requests records and sees them denied, or else returned with scrolls unusable, splattered in ink or water. He requests time for consult, only to discover the requests rebuffed, by nobles who have not a moment to give him.

Neither he nor Damen had guessed the ends to which the West would transgress. His talents served him well enough when he played a singular game of survival. Now the factors have multiplied a hundredfold, and the odds are not so easily measured.

On a strange summer night, the air shifting between heat and gales, he learns that even his initial allies are forfeit. For hours, the wine has flowed heavy beneath the celebration din, turning highborn faces to overripe fruit.

Laurent has tolerated it for hours, the wine in his hand untouched.

He steps around a whispering couple, gleaming under the paint of oil lamps. Moving through the reception is like footwork in the fighting ring, without the benefit of flat terrain.

Olaria trespasses his route, coming unsteady from the left. Her cheeks are flushed, her hair in minor disarray. “Your Majesty!” She moves to grip Laurent’s arm, a certain violation in Vere. “There is something—something I must tell you—”

Laurent steps away. “Of prodigious insight, I’m sure.”

“I wished to tell you—that is… we have not spoken. But we found your company diverting, truly. It is only that—”

“You would not trade _diverting_ for loyalty to your people.” Laurent is surprised to realize he sounds close to sympathetic.

Olaria stands for a moment, biting her lip. With sudden forcefulness, she blurts, “Have you been to the west-most districts in Ios?”

“To avail myself of the finest whorehouses in the city?”

“There is a—tavern. By the sea. Well. There are several.” Olaria looks up and takes a step back. “But this one—”

Kolythus comes upon them, making a grab for Olaria’s arm. He avoids Laurent’s gaze. Together, they leave. Laurent dismisses the matter, applying to it the ruthlessness with which he treats all matters these days. Yet another sampling of resentment, instituted by Lord Makarios.

Without allies or information, Laurent has no hope of contending with Makarios’ challenge. Like a river underground, a low, dark part of him knows it would take nothing to ruin the man. A condemnation well-timed, a simple order fulfilled, to haul him out of sight—where Laurent could do it cleanly with a dagger himself. But that is not the ruler he will be. He has had to blunt those edges, whittled in the cold of solitude, crafted for survival. The parts of him that would flay a man to the brink of death, or break his most loyal guard to anguish.

It leaves him an unsavory choice. The single member of the clan who has shown himself willing. Too willing, too keen-eyed, too ready to serve.

Tyros is the only one to have cast the ironclad Western bond aside in favor of Laurent. A move of ambition, for no other likely advisors have presented themselves from the region. In the same position, Laurent might have maneuvered similarly. Laurent suspects Tyros’ allegiance to the West was never very strong, and yet, he has observed Tyros’ influence with the set—the way none dare interrupt him, the way faces seek his lead on how to react. It is fear. There are deeper, darker secrets to be gained from the man. Laurent is not sure he wants them.

“You have subtle means of control,” Tyros says. The chambers open to a plashing fountain. A bird flutters near, then swoops away. “Council meetings, after all, ride on words. But you are King of your own nation and will soon be King of ours. Wield your authority, and he may only swallow.”

“Threaten punishment? A rather blunt solution.”

“Such is the price of an honest approach, Your Majesty. Is this not what you want?”

Laurent needs New Artes to be worthy of Damen’s unerring goodness, of the valor with which Auguste would have ruled, in another life. His haggling games of risk and defense, his shadow plays—they do not belong to this era. It cannot be enough to subdue.

He is too practiced to leave it at that. He needs, just as much, to tend to the court, ensure it does not break from his control. “Of course. I value honesty. I value the truth.”

“And to the like, you value true information.” Lord Tyros meets his gaze, unblinking. “A prudent choice.”

Neither of them so much as twitches, yet Laurent feels in the stare a motioned, circling quality. “You have something of interest.”

Without shifting in his seat, Lord Tyros says mildly, “I have something of interest. But first.”

Laurent recalls his inquiries into Tyros, returns of ledgers neatly made. Two holdings, labeled _Education,_  with less detail than the rest. He had not delved into them. Only now has their crude subterfuge become obvious. “You fear for your investments.”

“Your Majesty, it is an ambitious endeavor, the freeing of the slaves. I support you in it.” Lord Tyros pauses. “I would also like to maintain control of my assets.”

“The training of slaves requires a discriminating nature,” Laurent says. Tyros does not react. “No doubt your enterprises have benefited the city aristocracy. But the nation will change, on the word of your King. Preservation cannot be ensured.” His words sit between them, smooth with false polish.

“Yes,” Tyros says. “I would like an exception to be made.”

Laurent obscures his mind’s disorder with aloofness. Had he investigated more carefully, he would not find himself in this chokehold position, compelled to choose between options unassessed.

Like a painting too long observed, the lines of Tyros’ face have dissociated from meaning. Laurent looks, instead, at the vase behind him. It is lovely, despite the crack threading its lip. Were Damen here, he would probably stroll over and heave the blemished side around himself.

Laurent arrests his rising hysteria. As steadily as he can, he says, “Allowed enough exceptions, principles turn to sop. So too do the nations they uphold.”

Tyros does not answer. Laurent follows Tyros’ eyes down, to his own hands balanced atop the chair. Like the wings of a dying insect, they are delicate with quivering.

“Ah,” says Tyros. On impulse, Laurent tenses. The tendons rise. He watches them with horror detached.

“Not one exception?” Tyros leans forward. “Surely, with one, the nation may still stand.”

 

* * * * *

 

The sun drops behind its veil. The moon ascends.

His wax is burned to nothing, the castle hushed, a stony fortress silence.

And again. And again. Again, like this, the days and nights proceed like river-water, indistinguishable.

 

* * * * *

 

A week before the festival procession, the _Vocāre_ sing for him. Filling the space is a shimmer of sound, growing by the second, a hundred voices in chorus. Alone, their talents are considerable. Together, they are masterful, turning the air quivering and soft. The morning light seems alive on their skin.

“Yes,” Laurent says, ignoring the throb of his head, the raw burn of his palm. “That will do.”

 

* * * * *

 

Tomorrow, the festival at last. Light and song and gossip to distract; and then an audience of hundreds, awaiting his descent.

But now, there is only guttering fire and a midnight silence and Laurent, alone, presiding over a sprawl of words and figures. The ink-marks before him blur in and out of focus, like the fade of stars to daylight. Wax and wicks are ever-replenishing; loathe though Laurent is to admit it, his alertness is not.

Long past midnight, Laurent opens his desk drawer and reaches deep inside, drawing out a letter, arrived earlier that day. In penning it, Olaria could not have imagined Laurent might fulfill its instructions himself. He turns the fold of paper in his fingers, watching it dip in candlelight and shadow. If he does nothing, the embers he stokes, weeks in the making, will soon dwindle to ash.

He makes a decision.

The moon that night is pinned to the sky like a silver badge, but the nighttime activities of Ios live in shadow, hidden around the edges of lantern’s glow. Late though it is, low chatter lurks from nearly every corner. The ocean roar is ceaseless, beating cliffs not visible at the city’s center. There are roaming dogs, and nobles and commoners, and beggars slumped in the dark.

Westward, the streets will be lined with taverns open to the sea, frequented by less savory characters.

Guided by Olaria’s letter, Laurent goes westward.

He skirts steep stone steps and narrow, diving alleys, playing at errant nobility in his simple cloak. He has expressed his admiration for Akielon architecture enough times in recent weeks—a rare point on which he can share his feelings without pretense. Lit by sun or lamplight, the stark white walls that soar through the city are sublime.

A skittering sense follows him through the alleyways, past gambling dens, wine houses, stalls empty of goods. He makes his descent through the city steps, follows corridor after corridor to its inevitable end.

Up ahead, a spill of patrons outside a tavern, standing alone, together; and plainly clothed. An establishment for those seeking the company of strangers. A tarnished awning hangs over the edifice. Open windows wrap the walls. They reveal roving shadows and silhouettes, only faintly touched by candlelight.

The tavern is unusually busy. Laurent considers the dimly lit space. Facing the wall, he is less likely to be noticed. But this late, with the recent influx of Veretian nobles and merchants, he is unlikely to be recognized anyway; and he has come not for drink, but to watch the way across. He sits with the wall to his back and observes the mass of tilted bodies, listening intently as he waits. His hand is loose around his cup, the drink it holds untouched. He goes unnoticed. Soon, an impossibility.

There is plenty of talk about King Damianos, nearly all of it favorable. Of Laurent’s many concerns, Damen’s appeal to his people has never been one. There is some talk of the Veretian King, speculation on his relation to their Exalted. Not unexpected. Their tale swept the kingdom in a fortnight, melting age-old hostilities and providing a lesson on the vagaries of public sentiment. Laurent has always understood the appeal of a good story, and theirs, he has examined several times over and determined it as rousing as those he so loved as a child.

Every so often, on the other side of the dirt-packed street, figures emerge, shouldering the whorehouse's creaking wood door.

“I’m all for peace,” says a man to the side, made lumbering by drink.

“But?” says a woman, heavy-lidded.

“But it’s winning battles, conquering lands that makes us.”

She nods slowly. “Better to lose sometimes, than not win once.”

“Well, anyway. There’s always dice.”

“Unless that goes the way of the slaves. Would be hard to be a noble right now, knowing the best fucks of your life are behind you.”

The tavern empties, then fills, as the night wears on. None of the bodies that pass through the whorehouse match the one Laurent seeks.

A nearby Lord reaches across the table to clasp his companion. “You figured out the trading routes, then?”

His companion grins, sheepish. “It was Silas who noticed.”

“A fine lay and a sharp mind? You’ve got yourself a good one. Shame you’ll have to let him go.”

“Idiot. The King isn’t taking any slaves away. Just not training them anymore.”

“I heard differently.”

“That’s your fault, for believing those drunken fools you play cards with. You know they pawn off the old philosophers’ ideas as their own, don’t you?”

Laurent sits up, recognizing the figure emerging from the glow—his fluent motions, his graying hair. Garish light glides over the man’s brow, and Laurent knows.

A boy accompanies Tyros. A boy with brown lustrous curls and olive skin. The boy bows his head forcefully, as if expecting no mercy but wishing for it anyway. Tyros, more animated than Laurent has ever seen him, brings his hand against the boy’s backside. The boy’s face reveals itself, mouth opening to a cry, and Laurent sees in the moonlight his sharp, delicate features—unexpectedly Veretian, and disorienting for their resemblance, and for the raw red scrapes that run down them.

At the base of Laurent’s skull, a treacherous airlessness blooms. Tempting, to call it exhaustion, rather than a shadow-image of Nicaise, come back from the dead. _It couldn’t be_ , Laurent thinks, savage, _For his head is intact_.

He watches Tyros go. He has never been one for heroics, and chasing. Weakness, or judiciousness—it has always been this way. Perhaps in his years, he has become very clever at inaction, exhibited as a protracted, meticulous plan.

Olaria has chosen this, of all things, to bring to his attention. In considering his options, newly varied, Laurent thinks past the edges of the proposal he made to Damen before his parting—then returns to it, confronts it like a fist through glass.

After a while, Laurent is aware of a man sliding into the stool next to his, with the demeanor of a stranger in search of conversation. The man has hair almost as pale as his, and a beard flecked with gray. With a voice like soles on sand, he says, “How long have you been in Akielos?”

“Not very long,” says Laurent.

“Long enough to miss it, myself.”

Laurent lifts his thumb to the handle of his cup. He could easily leave. He could have easily left hours ago.

The man says, “Why did you come?”

Laurent would admire his persistence, if he weren’t annoyed by it. “A lover.” One he has spent his weeks here evading. One he has been too cowardly to speak with honestly. The man stirs beside him. Laurent does not try to see his expression. “I’ll be back.”

“Maybe I will as well,” the man says, taking a gulp of his drink. “I hear things have improved, since the ascendance of the new King.”

The walls of the tavern are cracked and warped by sea-spray. Now that he is not fixed on the whorehouse door, Laurent can almost make out the curl and collapse of the waves. “Five months is not enough to tell.”

“There is optimism in the air, even here. The Veretian King doesn’t have to do much to lift the court from the muck. You haven’t asked. But that’s why I left.”

“You were a member of the court.”

“A minor noble. A handful of visits was enough to sour me on the palace.” The man drains the rest of his drink. As he makes to depart, he says, “I hope the court you return to is a kinder place.”

Laurent stays at the tavern for longer than he should, running a finger along his cup, his mind like its rim—making rounds and discovering something lost of his, returned. When he finally leaves, the streets have thinned of stragglers. The night is still sunken, the stars smeared across the dark above. The sun will not rise for hours.

 

* * * * *

 

The eve of the festival arrives bathed in slow summer heat.

Hesperos dismissed, Laurent stands alone in the Great Hall, with its marble colonnades and sweeping ocean views. If he stood here once before, for hours clapped in chains, it should not be so difficult to stand still now. He goes to a window.

A fly makes hazy loops. Against the sky, it is an errant inkblot, its buzz dominating the sounds below. It rests on the stone beside Laurent’s hand. Laurent stares at it, unmoving.

A breeze sweeps the ledge. The fly lifts into flight.

Laurent allows himself a minute before turning and walking through the hall. The early light fans the stone like cards in a hand. His footsteps ring hollow upon it.

The door closes behind him, and he feels a hand on his arm. He does not make blunders as obvious as flinching anymore, and yet, he just has, pulse leaping like a colt.

Damen laughs and steps toward him, bringing them into the shadows, where they cannot be seen by guards. “That was the fourth time I’ve ever managed to surprise you.”

In the space of a breath, Laurent is formed and remade, returned to himself. Then—he remembers what lies ahead. The world tilts back, and he is nothing but a disarray of falsehoods, soon to be revealed.

The words glide easily from his mouth, for some habits, he has not lost. “I always imagined the Akielon palace with obstacles in each corner, to encourage vigilance and fast reflexes. Now I see they achieve the effect by having their King leap out from the dark.”

Damen laughs quietly. His eyes are warm, his lips appealing. “It is a joy to see you.”

Damen leans in, smelling faintly of smoke and sweat, lips soft against Laurent’s. The sensation of him nearly overwhelms. As Damen curves a hand forward to cup Laurent’s jaw, Laurent releases a silent breath. It is almost a sigh, except there is no use in wistfulness. He could wish for more time, or for strength that would let him yield—to Damen, to all of this. He will have none of it. Only an urgent heartbeat and lungs empty of air, but as long as Damen does not see, as long as Damen does not think the fault is his—

“I’m sorry—” Damen says, stepping back at once. “I did not—I should have asked.”

Laurent’s hands are fists. He holds them still, just out of sight. He hopes Damen does not look down.

“Nothing like that,” Laurent says lightly. The trick to masking his feelings is to meet the gaze; most people never suspect, once he does that. Perhaps Damen will not, either. “My mind is merely occupied.” He summons a smile to his lips. “I must see to preparations.”

Laurent turns on his heels. He does not look back.

 

* * * * *

 

Athletic competitions and light receptions stack the day. Laurent spends them staring straight ahead, unfolding his arguments, testing their creases. A child’s tactic, hoping this might deter Damen’s glances of concern, but he has not the cunning for anything else.

The moments for private conference are few. It helps that, for the length of the day, they are not men, but Kings. Implacable, infallible, their lives poised above their quotidian rift.

Late into the morning, on the way from one boisterous entertainment to another, Damen manages to breach his guard. A marble arch shields them from the teeming public. “Something is wrong. Laurent—”

“It is nothing.” The basest deflection. He has nothing better.

The hurt is plain on Damen’s face, reserved wholly for him. But the jostling retinue catches up with them, and there is nothing left but to fall back to their proper selves, become who they must.

 

* * * * *

 

And then, it is time. The court splits apart, some due for early revelry, the rest due to play witness.

Among the first to enter the vast council chambers, Laurent takes his seat, imitating nonchalance. He knows they will stare. He is an unmistakable anomaly, his skin no doubt even paler in his state. He rests his palms upon his thighs. If they bear more of his work, he is not sure he will be able to hide their rawness.

The bleached walls are drawn with late afternoon shade, but the sun leaves its imprint in bolts that seem bright enough to burn. Uncovered, the windows invite in a plenitude of coastal air, taunting pinned curls and loose cloths. The softest scuffles, upon reaching the stone walls, are thrown back twice as loud.

The entering nobility do not chatter, but neither are they silent. None would dare complain that the meeting, coinciding with the opening of the festival, is to occur so late in the day. But when the members file in, there is a slight mulishness in the air, like that of youths made to labor before playtime.

Eventually, the room fills with the Kyroi, the high nobles, the most important commanders of the land—hundreds of them come to Ios for this most distinguished occasion. Contained here, the future of Akielon power. Makarios had aimed deep in lobbing his challenge for this very day, when the exposure of weakness would hurt most.

Laurent recognizes many of the audience. These are nobles he has come to know over the last many weeks, with whom he has shared food, drink, information, wit. A few of them incline their heads at his sight. He acknowledges them, feeling something of surprise. In recent days, his mind had turned his supporters to coins: relevant only in sum, abstracted from their individual parts. Now they stand whole before him—ready to hear him and, perhaps soon, to abandon him.

Makarios, when he enters, frowns to see Laurent. Laurent has adopted a visage of stone. If he can do nothing else, he will at least be unyielding in his expression. Small gratification, to have Makarios turn away before he does.

In the far corner, Tyros sits, his face containing no reaction to the growing commotion. Laurent turns his gaze away, finding no reason to fixate. He is not short of subjects to assess.

The meeting begins.

There are discussions of illnesses broken out, provinces short of mineral supply, treaties on the verge of annulment. Too busy racing laps through his arguments, Laurent hardly hears any of it. Thrice, he tries to train his mind on the proceedings. It is like gripping at thrashing eels.

“The Veretian plowing technique His Majesty suggested is yielding fortuitous results.”

Sensing a space he is meant to fill, Laurent drags his gaze over to Lady Pelagia. “Yes,” he says. The pause he takes feels immeasurable. “I thought it might.”

The meeting does not stop for him. Discussion resumes.

He finds the minutiae of his arguments slipping apart, like snow melting off a bank. He should not have waited. He should have insisted on speaking at the outset of the meeting. It has always been his wont to wait, and now it will make his ruin.

“Everything is in order for the pronouncement tomorrow,” Damen says. Laurent blinks his shock at the vanish of time. “Make merry at the festival tonight, but do not forget that we have three days of rejoicing, and sunlight is unforgiving to a head recovering from wine.” Damen pauses. “Have we any other matters to discuss?”

Laurent glances at Makarios. He is not sure he has heard Makarios speak once in the meeting, but he has not been paying very close attention, or any attention at all.

The walls echo back the assembly’s quiet, and still, Makarios does not jump to his feet to roar his demands.

This is—a reprieve. An escape, even. It would be wisest to say nothing.

 _They expect something of me, and I give it to them._ Something Auguste had said. Laurent no longer remembers how he responded—does not know why this, this ancient memory, lifts clear from the welter. He only remembers the ensuing feeling: a gladness, to be absolved of such weighty responsibility.

“Well then,” Damen says, and Laurent’s thoughts are all mayhem, now—for he recalls, absurdly, what Damen had claimed of his character those months ago, in this very palace. “If that is so—”

“Wait.”

Laurent wishes Damen’s expression were not so apparently troubled. No others seem to see it. The rest of the gathered have all turned to face Laurent.

“If I may,” Laurent says. Damen inclines his head, stolidity back in place.

The heavy chair scrapes the floor as Laurent stands, limbs barely steady. “A demand was issued,” he says. He is appalled to hear his voice tremor. It is as though he is thirteen again, a sapling Prince with neither wisdom nor mettle to rule.

Laurent swallows, distantly aware of marble beneath his hand. The coolness is a relief, a point on which to focus when all else is splintering. “The demand was made as provocation. But it was issued nonetheless.” The crowd before him seems frozen, marmoreal in its anticipation.

He has parchments detailing his investigations, dense with numbers and facts. He has relics from those investigations: scrawled, unfinished drafts, lying among the mound on his desk, or tucked in his chest of books, or bound in leather in the care of his stewards. An extravagance of efforts, borne of several restless, sleep-scant weeks.

His calculations are not complete. There had not been enough time. Five weeks had been a paltry allowance to complete an errand that had always been impossible. It has only become obvious now. Yet another oversight. It would trouble him, if he did not have much greater concerns to attend to. 

For a plummeting moment, as Laurent strains to remember his figures, he watches the assembled nobility watch him.

He cannot do it. He cannot remember.

He abandons his intentions.

“Is it numbers and f—”

He has not tripped his words in years. Certainly not before an audience of this import. It is a strange, cold sensation.

Laurent swallows and stills. He begins again. “Is it numbers and—facts you desire, on the shrewdness of ending a slave culture?” He leaves a pause, for the audience and for himself. “No highborn I know has ever willingly relinquished a good night’s fuck on the basis of numbers alone.”

In the nearest rows, some rueful smiles, some glances exchanged.

“You all keep slaves. Soon you may lose them, their bodies no longer yours to wield. The loss will not be in your favor. I will not convince you that it is. On that point, you can consider the challenge forfeit.”

Nobody calls for him to cease. He continues.

“I have been accused by some of you—” and here, he forces a wan smile to his face, uneven-feeling— “of having ideals. Another claim I cannot deny. For years, I endured the court of my Uncle, the Regent. You have all despised Vere. Some of you still do. You have all whispered about the vices, the febrile excesses, the giddy machinations of the Veretian court. During his rule, my Uncle proved every one of these suppositions true.”

The audience shimmers, a haze without distinction.

“During his rule, I watched advantages gained by withholding truths. Alliances made on the grounds of fear. Rampant abuses of the powerless. I watched, and I did little.”

Laurent remembers hearing, and reading, stories of rulers before their people, proud and impassioned to voice their minds. He remembers placing himself in such tales, notions of pure childhood fantasy.

He knows he must now look like such a King: imperturbable, graceful, his head held high. But ignoring his panic is like holding down a gutted creature, despite what seems like a lifetime of practice.

He must—he will—continue in the face of it. As he always has.

“Akielos thinks itself superior. I have seen the elegance of your ideas and your art, the boldness with which you speak. I admire it greatly. But Akielos cannot be the superior culture if so many of its subjects are born and robbed immediately of their will—for little more than the pleasure of the powerful.

“You think your slaves know nothing. They have been by your sides for the spans of their lives, listening. They know much.

“And if we are to unite as one—” Laurent’s eyes find Damen, whose own eyes are wide— “then it is to us to decide what kind of nation we will be.”

To his own ears at last, he sounds as he wishes to: serious, certain, true.

“I will not presume to dictate your ways of living or thinking. I only say this: I hope to rule over a nation I would be glad to live in, regardless of my fortune. One in which I might exercise my will, be judged with fairness, make inquiries of the world. You tell me learning of Veretian ingenuity has served you. Imagine if the knowledge of both our kingdoms, gathered over centuries, were the province of all. We cannot imagine how we might flourish.”

The silence stretches long—a signal of astonishment, or hostility—while the audience sharpens in Laurent’s vision. It is full of austere expressions—but there are some of consideration.

Lady Euphiredes’ voice ripples from on high, down over the rows. “From the rumors we heard, we could not have supposed the Prince of Vere was a friend of the powerless.”

“I have known powerlessness.” Laurent swallows, feeling raw and run through. “I believe it will make me a better King.”

“Your Majesty.” A limpid voice, coming from the corner.

Laurent sinks the nail of his thumb into the flesh of his forefinger. The voice is a soldier with a spear, rushing to slay him; it is his horse collapsing in spurts of blood, pitching him toward a boar awaiting its next victim. It is his Uncle, standing placid while he is splayed, hungry fever betrayed in his eyes.

Lord Tyros calls out, “How does the court hope to compensate the Western regions? Might you enlighten us with these sums?”

Silence and stillness. For a second, and another. For too long.

Then—the pound of a hand against marble.

The room’s collective interest jitters, then aims like a thrown javelin, finding the origin of the noise.

Makarios.

 _Of course_ , Laurent thinks. _It cannot be won_. He has scrambled over the precipice, and still the earth tilts; and still, his disgrace will be flaunted.

“Quiet yourself, Tyros!” Makarios shouts. “The young King of Vere speaks. Listen to him. Not one of us wants to hear you, or see you, or the sweat on your nose.”

A wild expression startles to Tyros’ face. Amusement quavers the room. More than a few chortles escape from the audience.

When the clamor subsides, Laurent speaks. In resisting the pull of fatigue, Laurent locates a pit of satisfaction—much like the satisfaction of a meal foregone, or of muscles strained to weeping. It is the feeling, too, of being gifted an enemy and granting him life, or of spending months holding a swelling tide of longing at bay.

From the fringes of exhaustion, Laurent says, voice ringing clear, “If the assembly will allow—I wish to propose a law.”

Amusement turns to keen anticipation, as though braced for a reversal of fate. There is no protest. “The path to abolition will be long, and difficult,” Laurent says. “But for now, an act that nobody with principle can oppose. Allow the plights of slaves to be judged in fairness—to be brought out to the light of law, as any other citizens’ would be.”

At once, Makarios says gruffly, “Utter barbarism, that this is not yet law. I cast my support.”

More voices follow: Lady Euphiredes, then Lord Oreste, Lady Aegina; lords and ladies from regions spanning the nation, whose support Laurent had thought dissipated in the recent weeks foregone. The swell rises and breaks like first rainfall, a revelation.

In sweeping his gaze over the room, Laurent cannot miss Damen, who regards him intently, with eyes that shine.

“One last item before the festivities,” Laurent says. “I submit an accusation, transgression of the law most recently passed.”

He speaks the name. If he has planned correctly, after today, this court will be clear of it.

 

* * * * *

 

For a man of such unbroken impassiveness, Lord Tyros, gripped by guards with their own practiced stoicism, does not depart gracefully. The affair lurches with disorder. In the moment of exit, the nobility of Akielos reveals its frivolous instincts, lords and ladies fairly hanging off benches to observe the long-awaited downfall of Commander Lord Tyros.

Then it is over. A challenge, weeks in the making, ended. The room begins to empty.

Before anyone can demand his attention, Laurent approaches Damen. His sentiments haven’t yet resolved into thoughts. He intends to reveal them anyway. He pitches his voice low, so Damen must bend to hear. “I desire your company. But the reception will be happy to have you.” The words form and flow like waves. “And, I think—I would like to be alone. For a short while. Find me, when you have tired of them.”

“Then,” Damen says, eyes creasing as he straightens, “I have found you.” His gaze sets a fever in Laurent’s chest. Laurent touches a brief hand to Damen’s arm—a promise.

Damen lifts a hand toward Laurent's face, then looks about, as if hoping the room's occupants have vanished. He pulls the hand back, disappointment writ clear. “Where will you be?”

“I don’t know,” Laurent says honestly.

Damen nods and says, “I'll find you,” before being drawn away by the claims of the court.

Laurent turns, steeling himself to satisfy his own assemblage of waiting courtiers. He sees Makarios stalk over and push through the group without making contact with its members. Planting himself before Laurent, Makarios mutters, “Miserable imp, that man. I am well-pleased to see him gone.”

Laurent nods. He had not expected Makarios to seek him out, but now that he has, Laurent will not squander the chance. Makarios may not be an ally quite yet, but Laurent thinks his animosity safely dispelled. “Lord Makarios. I did not think you had agreed to the proposal I sent this morning.”

“I hadn’t,” Makarios says. His shrug is like the sudden appearance of twin mountain peaks. “I suppose you convinced me.”

“I may have convinced you to condemn Tyros. But earlier than that, you neglected to press the challenge against me.”

Makarios leans in close. Laurent did not think the man capable of lowering his voice, but now he must strain to hear him. “You hid it well enough. But you have an ailment. The same, I believe, as what Tyros had against me.”

Makarios takes advantage of the stunned space Laurent leaves him. “Your Majesty, you are a King, yes. But do not put yourself through such trials if you do not have to. If you are to be a good King, you and your people—and, indeed, Damianos—will want you to be a good King for a long time.”

Laurent frowns. “You are the one who challenged me.”

“Yes!” Makarios straightens. He has made no effort to hide his exasperation. “The next time some brash fool does that, turn him down! And the next time you don’t know something, say so!” He sighs, rubbing his temple. “I do not know if this is Veretian folly, or youthful folly, or the folly of young Veretian men. Whatever it is, it is folly.”

Makarios does not give him a chance to respond; he shakes his head a last time, passes off a curt nod as obeisance, and departs. Laurent blinks. It is somewhat fortunate—even now, he cannot conjure a cleverer rejoinder than, _Oh. I see_.

Makarios gone, the straggling nobility come upon him. Laurent weathers their responses, mind minimally present. They are full of opinions on slavery, many contentious, a few tentative in their support. It is not full persuasion, but it is a start. The long, slow work of kingship. Nothing like the blunted states—wins and losses, survival or death—he had grown used to.

Lord Oreste is the last to remain. “Will you join us at First Reception, Your Highness?”

“No,” Laurent says. “My words are spent for the moment.”

Oreste bows, and leaves.

Alone, Laurent inhales.

He steps through the entryway.

 

* * * * *

 

Laurent lets his feet take him downward. The hallways are deserted save for a handful of guards and servants, who bow upon seeing him, their arms full of festival fare.

When he arrives where he means to, there is nobody at all.

Laurent walks, overcome with a feeling like slipping into the baths. The gravel beneath his feet is incongruous with the surrounding beauty. But the simplicity of treading stone does something to subdue him.

It is not the first time he has visited the palace gardens, but every other time, he had strolled the paths with guests, too busy with diplomacy to admire the scene. These are not the private gardens, plots shielded by the walls of the King’s or Queen’s quarters. This garden exists to summon awe.

Stone steps rise and fall. Marble columns stand to attention. Ripples of greenery appease sharp angles of limestone, and rows of herbs line the ground, primly awaiting purpose. There are enough shaded archways and alcoves to enchant, or perplex, for a lifetime. Daffodils and saffron fan their edges, below sly grapevines and ivy.

Amidst it all, fountains and a still pond of water—reflecting a red hushed sky—and sculptures of royalty, ancient and new. Laurent moves past one that gleams, familiar in its stature. He does not dwell.

He wants, suddenly, to climb. The gardens at Arles bear little resemblance to this, but he has a memory of being encouraged to pull himself as high as he might go. It is a childish fancy. He has not indulged it in years. It would be ridiculous to be caught like that, but he is somewhat past caring.

He strikes a compromise and finds a shadowed juncture between two stone structures, made covert by a spray of wisteria, high enough to meet his wants. He discovers the vestiges of shakiness in his limbs when he scales the edifice, but he reaches the top easily enough.

A few servants emerge to light oil lamps, but they do not see him. He sits alone for some time after that, listening to festival sounds drift from the surrounding city.

Eventually, footsteps—a gait he knows well.

Laurent watches Damen touch his fingertips to the folds of a sculpture with no face or age, its head-covering long crumbled to dust. It seems an unthinking motion. Damen shakes his head, a little. He looks around, and then upward.

He smiles when he sees Laurent.

Laurent looks down at him. “Your poor guests, dispossessed of three apricots, a bread loaf, and their King in a single stroke.”

“I left to tend to more important allegiances,” Damen says. “And diplomatic visits require gifts.” He pauses and looks at the flat loaf in his hand. “Well—the bread I took for myself. May I join you?”

The Veretian he speaks makes Laurent’s chest throb with memory. It is the Veretian they spoke in battlefield tents, shoulder to shoulder in vanishing light. It is the same Veretian spoken at a court offering no safety, the same Veretian Auguste once used to spin stories.

Laurent says, “Three apricots is hardly an ample offering.”

“Three apricots and company?”

At Laurent’s imperious gesture, Damen tucks the loaf in the crook of his arm and begins his ascent. In hardly any time, he peers over the ledge, placing the apricots down. Laurent takes the bread from him. It is still warm and leaves fine dust on his fingertips.

There is little room to spare once Damen clambers his way onto the platform and seeks a position. Laurent does not mind. He’d picked the ledge in part because it would accommodate them both.

Damen settles with his back against the stone. He takes the loaf back and breaks off a small piece to offer to Laurent, then to eat. “I may have reignited Northern revolt by refusing Makedon’s griva, even with Makarios urging me on. But I was taking too long as it was. I sped through the palace so quickly, some of the household might have mistaken me for a thief.”

Damen would have raced through the marble halls with arms laden with food, knowing he could not evade notice but determined on his path. Laurent fills with strange lightness and laughs. He is aware of Damen next to him, smiling with relief.

Basking is an indulgence, but it has been so long. A few minutes pass. The feeling winks away, though something fundamental seems to remain.

“That was,” Damen says softly, “A very fine speech.”

Laurent picks up an apricot. It is perfectly smooth in his palm, undamaged in transport. “You were right, at the inn.” The oil lamps are captivating, with their vagaries caught in glass. “I talk more when I’m nervous.” Damen’s shoulder is warm against his. “But sometimes, not nearly enough.”

It is strange; Laurent cannot bring himself to say what he needs to. He only knows, like the coming of light, that he will. He lets it be. Trusts in it, in himself.

He watches trees of apple and ash and elm sway in the evening breeze. After some time, he says, “Have you thought about it? What you hope they will say about you?”

Damen follows his gaze to the space below, where Damen's statue stands, solemn beneath the waning light. “After I’ve—gone? No. I only think about what it means to rule well, to decide fairly the matters that face me.”

“You’ve never questioned your right to the throne. Or your worthiness of it.” Laurent hears himself, the steadiness of his voice. “Not even when you were my slave.”

Damen’s words are a slow march, like the drag of sun in the far distance. “I was told all my life I would rule.” Laurent is still, the wind gentle to his neck. “There was never anything else.”

Laurent turns away, pinning his gaze to the far horizon. “I thought for some years that I would have my books, and I would be happy supplying Auguste with knowledge. And then—” He stops, collects his hastening words— “and then, after, I didn’t allow myself to think about… I thought about unseating my Uncle. I thought about survival. Surviving meant becoming King, and so I strove to become King.”

“Laurent.” Damen sounds half-enraged on his behalf, to an offender unknown. “You can’t mean you deserve the throne only because you were a better choice than your Uncle. Surely.”

Laurent is silent.

“You once said so yourself,” Damen insists. “You were born to rule.”

Sharply, Laurent says, “Is a beggar born to starve? A slave, to submit? We fought for our thrones. This kingdom is ours now, and perhaps we will come to deserve it. But this power was given to us. What did we do to earn it, but be born to the right families and witness the right tragedies?”

“If I had not met you—” and Laurent closes his eyes to hear it, to hear the pain wringing Damen's voice— “I might have been as lustful of conquest as my Father.”

“No. You grew up thinking one thing. But you are also—good. In Vere, what you did for the slaves, surrendering what you did—that is how you have always been.”

Damen’s laugh is laced with disbelief. “You speak of me as if I were some hero, when you have behaved with no less courage.”

“If I am like you, it is because you have unleashed something foolhardy in me.” Laurent realizes he is speaking very quietly.

Damen shifts his arm carefully, almost shy in his hesitation, until their hands are back to back, a mote apart. Their fingers brush, and Laurent’s throat tightens. Damen says, just as quietly, “My tutors recited poems of valor, taught me about men and women who gripped fate in their hands and willed the world to turn about them. When I first met you, you reminded me of them.”

“You think too highly of me.” Neither of them speaks for a long time. It is as if Damen knows, and is waiting.

Laurent turns his focus to Damen. Not to talk. Only to know, in full certainty, he is here.

Damen smiles at him tentatively, his head tilted at a mild angle. 

In answer, Laurent shifts toward him, body engaged in a graceless twisting motion, one that has Damen smiling in full. Laurent hardly minds. He arches and reaches with his left hand for Damen, but Damen needs neither the indication nor the assistance. Soon enough, his arm comes around Laurent, solid, and warm, and real.

In the safety of Damen’s embrace, Laurent closes his eyes and breathes. For the first time in a long time, doing so doesn’t feel like his sole defense against coming apart.

“Damen.” Laurent swallows. Deep within him, a hard, old hurt unclasps. “I have… not been well.”

Damen’s arm tightens around him. It is as if, in doing so, Damen hopes to alter the past. “I know. You have worked tirelessly since arriving.”

Laurent shakes his head, knowing Damen can feel the motion. “It is not mere weariness. I was weary on the campaign, those long days of marching and nights of planning, but I did not suffer this—weakness. I fear it has already compromised my ability to rule. Perhaps tomorrow—” The words catch on his tongue. He realizes he has tensed. He examines the impulse and finds a part of himself halted, expecting Damen to pull away first.

But Damen presses closer, his hand warm against the back of Laurent’s neck, the weight of his body like shelter. Laurent leans into the heat of him, his cheek to the curve of Damen’s shoulder.

“We needn’t talk now,” Damen murmurs. “Or do anything else, here.”

At the astonishment this produces, this statement of simple fact, Laurent exhales a shaky breath. The sound is muffled to fabric and skin, a private sound, for this moment, and them, alone.

The moment stretches patiently.

Laurent senses from Damen a carefully tamped restlessness, and pulls back to look at him, amused. “You do realize you may speak if you so wish. I am still myself, not another faraway King in disguise, and I do still enjoy talk.”

“I know,” Damen says, looking sheepish. It falls away, becomes serious. As Damen shifts, the anchoring warmth of his body leaves Laurent. Just as quickly, memory turns to truth, the warmth replaced by Damen’s hands, one clasped to each of Laurent’s shoulders.

Damen simply holds him and looks, with eyes as intent as the earth aflame. Laurent feels as if he could weave about himself an endlessly layered mantle, subterfuge and defenses, and still—Damen would want to know him beneath it.

“Laurent,” Damen says, “you must know—you have done more than anyone could. You have astounded me, with all that you have done.”

Laurent, in defiance of wary cunning, believes him. Not yet in the truth as Damen sees it—but that Damen sees it, means it, without question. And that, in itself, seems a kind of truth, one to clutch tight in his fist.

“I cannot pretend to know what has been ailing you,” Damen continues. His grip tightens around Laurent’s shoulders. “But I hope to know, and to understand, and to do what I can to help. If you will let me.”

Laurent nods, finding himself without words to say. He need not speak now, but when the time comes—he will. He will not be alone in his plight.

Another desire rouses in him, for it has been too long without. He slides fingers down the rough of Damen’s jaw, reveling in the way Damen’s eyes widen, then light. Laurent leans forward, into the tender space that is their own, the space of his lips to Damen’s, skin to skin, hunger to hunger. The heat he discovers is as new as rising sun, and equally familiar.

When they break away, Damen looks utterly dazed. Laurent smiles at that, reaching out to cup Damen’s cheek, to stroke his thumb at the edge of Damen's lips. Evidence of the kiss lingers. Orange firelight flecks Damen’s skin, a reflection of nearby oil lamps.

Eventually, Damen gently nips at Laurent’s thumb, then presses a quick kiss to it. “I will require your help as well, if you will give it.”

“With?”

“I have floundered as King too, you know. The other day, I simply stared mutely when Lady Aegina asked me about the situation on brass supply taxes.”

“Ah.” Laurent nestles back into Damen’s embrace. Laurent’s left hand seeks Damen but meets air. After a pause, Damen’s arm settles back around him. “There are armory merchants who resent the regional border taxes.”

Damen huffs a breath. “You see? I would not rule half so well without you.”

Laurent murmurs, “And I feel no differently.”

Damen pauses. Laurent can feel his slow, considering nod. “Then we are both lucky to be ruling together,” Damen says. His voice is dignified, rough, a monument. “Perhaps it will not be easy. But we will lead our kingdom to prosperity. I know it.”

“There is so much to be done.” Laurent feels something like the heave of a ship out to sea, the disorienting sight of a place previously unknown. “I fear I will never know—whether I am doing enough.”

“Laurent,” Damen says, and Laurent turns to look at him, his chest aching at what he sees. The conviction in Damen’s dusk-dark eyes is impossible to doubt. “You are enough. You have always been enough.”

 

 

 

 


End file.
